The weekly weather-crop report from the Southern Research and Outreach Center at Waseca shows that cold weather with a welcome rain was the theme for the weather for the past week, ending June 10.
Temperatures averaged 54.8 degrees, which is a whopping 11 degrees below normal. We set records three days in a row for lowest maximum air temperatures beginning with a 50 degree high on the June 7 and continuing through June 9 with a 56 degree high. Growing degree units totaled only 45.5 which is less than half of what we should expect this week.
Since May 1, GDUs now total 419, which is 15 percent behind normal. We normally reach 419 GDUs by June 5 so we are about five days behind normal at this early stage of the growing season.
Good news we received this week was a nice rain of 1.34 inches, which was about 0.4 inches above normal and came down gently and all soaked in the soil nicely. Thick clouds dominated the later half of this week and solar radiation was low on three of seven days.
Last year this week brought normal temperatures at 65.1 degrees with above-average rainfall totaling 1.8 inches. Like this year, last year we were behind normal in GDU accumulation and at this time we had 428 GDUs.
Corn and soybean development was slow this week, as you would expect during record cool temperatures. Corn is in the V5 stage and is 10 to 12 inches tall. This seems a little short for the leaf stage which is most likely the result of cool temperatures. Last year at this time corn was only in the V4 leaf stage so we are a little bit ahead of last year because of earlier planting this spring. While growth was slow this week, the benefits of the rainfall should payoff when sunshine and warm temperatures return.
Posted by Kevin Schulz, The Land editor
The Land Blog
June 10, 2009
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